


Nuts and Dates

by Ice20



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Childhood Memories, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Memories, Post-Crusades, Pre-Andromache, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:08:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26651191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ice20/pseuds/Ice20
Summary: Yusuf has been allergic to nuts ever since the day he was born.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 66





	Nuts and Dates

**Author's Note:**

> It has been a long while since I last found myself so enamored with a fandom and with certain characters. I suspect this short fic won't be the last one posted here.
> 
> This takes place a few years after Nicolò and Yusuf meet, after the Crusades, and well before they begin their relationship (though Yusuf already feels something for the Italian) and meet Andy.
> 
> Since I'm not a natve English speaker and I do not have a Beta, I apologize for any eventual mistakes. Also, I'm very tired, I worked for nine hours and wrote this instead of eating dinner. So if you find any typo and point them out, I will correct them later.

Yusuf has been allergic to nuts ever since the day he was born.

His reaction to them had been so severe the first time he munched on one, that his parents had lost ten years of their lives for the scare it caused them, and therefore he'd grown up not knowing the taste of those little fruits. Well, Yusuf didn't really mind. It wasn't like there wasn't a whole variety of other delicious foods to eat.

Dates were his absolute favorite. Rich, sweet, delicious. Once when he was about seven years of age, in an act of childish mischief, Yusuf stole a whole basket of them from his grandmother's house where he spent his afternoons as his parents worked at the market, and hid behind the low wall of crumbling bricks of her garden to eat all of them. Well, he didn't succeed in his mission, but he gobbled down more than half of the basket before he got sick.

His grandmother was old and kind and her face looked like a dry prune with all those lines stretching as she gently laughed at him and caressed his face when he came back in the house crying because of the cramps. She had him lay down on the small cot next to the stove and accompanied him to the secluded area of the garden used as a toiled when the need to relieve himself became too strong. She kissed his sweaty forehead and Yusuf hugged her, hiding his face in her chest. His grandmother was short, whereas he was quite tall for his age. He sobbed and cried as she soothed him, and after he had calmed down enough, she smiled and told him this would serve him as a lesson.

His father wasn't as prone to forgive as her, and he smacked his behind, once, hard, telling him not to do something like that anymore.

“Stealing, Yusuf? Is that what me and your mother have taught you?” His face, usually open and jovial, was hard and serious and his brown eyes were so disappointed. Yusuf would never forget them.

“No, father,” Yusuf had replied, voice trembling and fat tears falling. The smack hadn't really hurt, but he was so ashamed of himself, of his actions. He had apologized to his grandmother and bought her a pastry the following day, using some of his savings. His mother had nodded approvingly and smiled, calling him a good-hearted son.

Many years later, standing in the crowded market of an unnamed village in the middle of nowhere in what would later become Lebanon, the wind blowing dust from the desert nearby in a most annoying way, Yusuf was assaulted by that memory so suddenly he almost dropped the small wrapping of oranges he was holding. The fruits would have gone to waste smashed on the dirty pavement had it not been for his silent companion, a man almost as tall as him and with a face completely wrapped in a scarf to avoid being both sunburn and identified as foreigner, whose pale eyes and slightly too big nose were the only lineament visible to the world.

“Yusuf, are you alright?” Nicolò whispered in accented Arabic. His hands stilled his trembling ones.

He could only smile tightly and nod. Facing the seller, an old man looking at him curiously, he paid and quickly turned to go, sure that the other man would follow him like he had for the past few years.

Yusuf was quick to navigate the narrow streets of the village, passing by small houses and little lots of land with low walls to separate them from the streets. He walked past hanging clothes and women walking with their many children and men talking loudly, and after a few minutes he was in the open, the village half a mile behind.

He sat down next to low bushes with dry leaves and breathed slowly, willing his heart to slow down and calm. He could feel tears threatening to fall. _Why now?_ , he wondered.

Nicolò, a few paces behind him, crouched down in front of him and lowered the scarf, showing a face lined with worry.

“Yusuf? What is it?”

“Nothing,” he replied brokenly. The words were unconvincing to his own ears.

Nicolò frowned. He opened his mouth to ask him once more, then closed it with a snap, a long standing and well ingrained instinct of self-preservation taking over, having learned very young not to press and bother others. He looked angry, at himself, not at Yusuf, for his inability to speak, and he took three deep breaths before he managed to open his mouth once more. “It doesn't look like nothing to me. If I can help...”

Yusuf let out a choked sob, and hid his face in his hands. Oh, how pathetic he felt, how ashamed, a grown up man crying; and with an audience, furthermore.

“Yusuf, please,” Nicolò whispered, his hand resting on Yusuf's knee.

Damned Nicolò, with his soft-spoken words and his gentle touches!

Yusuf surged forward and wrapped his arms around the man's middle, all but hiding his face and his tears in his abdomen, much like he'd done all those years ago with his grandmother. And, much like her, Nicolò hugged him back and tenderly caressed his nape with tentative touches, despite the tension that Yusuf could feel radiating from his body. The Genoese was unused to contacts like these. Yusuf couldn't stop the tears as that thought added to the other ones and to the memories.

It took him a while to calm down. His eyes were red and he knew his face was an ugly mess when he finally let go of the death grip around Nicolò's chest. Yusuf sniffed inelegantly and used his sleeve to wipe away dried tears and snot, aiming to look slightly more presentable when he pulled back.

Nicolò didn't comment. He let him go, and mutely sat down in front of him, wincing minutely as his knees creaked from standing crouched too long in the same position, but otherwise only waited for him to talk.

Yusuf opened and closed his mouth a few times, looking for the right words, but what came out was a rushed, almost incomprehensible confession.

“I stole from my grandmother's home when I was a kid.”

Nicolò stared at him, face scrunched, before he managed to interpret the words. As he did so, his eyebrows lifted in surprise, and his mouth became a hard line.

“I find it very hard to believe,” he replied, sincere as always.

Yusuf let out a laugh that sounded like a wet whimper. “I was a child, and I loved dates so much. My mother would bake baklava – without nuts, made just for me, bless her – and I would ask for more dates instead.”

The corner of Nicolò's mouth lifted minutely in amusement. As Yusuffound himself recounting the rest of the story as if the words came and spilled from his mouth on their own volition, the imperceptible smirk transformed into a real, very rare smile, one of those Yusuf seldom saw. Any other day he would have congratulated himself at such an accomplishment, for making the Genoese smile was anything but easy, and would have lost himself staring at it. Today, he simply mirrored the gesture and found himself smiling a little, too. He felt as if a little of the sadness that had enveloped him was lifted.

“You were a little scoundrel, then.”

“Yes, I was. Not usually but, you know... children...” Yusuf traded off.

Nicolò smiled, albeit hollowly, at his words, and Yusuf sombered, too.

“It hardly seems like a severe sin. You didn't to it with malice, and you understood your mistake.”

Yusuf wrapped his arms around himself, and looked at the man before him, sitting with their legs almost touching. He shook his head. His behavior as a child wasn't really the point, after all.

“My grandmother died when I was twelve. By then, my parents had two other children,” he said. “I don't know what came of any of them.”

Nicolò tensed, and passed his hand on his mouth. Yusuf blinked.

“My father was very old when I went to Jerusalem, and I believe he must be dead. But my mother was much younger than him, and Parvin, and Fatima were young women...” Yusuf's voice broke a little. “I just, I wish I could know if they are still alive, and I hope so, and at the same time I hope they didn't suffer anymore than strictly necessary.”

The Crusaders hadn't only fought and killed the men, the invaders and infidels as they called them. They had burned villages, raped women and girls, killed the old and the children. They had systematically stolen and destroyed, until all that was left after their transit was... nothing at all.

Yusuf didn't know if they had reached his hometown. He had left with the man sittind beside him long before he would ever know.

“Yusuf, I am so sorry. We behaved worse than beasts, and I -” Nicolò went to apologize, the pain and remorse dripping from each single word, but Yusuf raised his hand in a silent request to stop.

He didn't need the apology of someone who had already understood and admitted his mistakes, someone who had not been free to decide to begin with and who had been manipulated like the powerful often did with the poor and the ignorant and the ones in need.

And he didn't want to ponder too much about what it exactly meant that he forgave the Genoese something like that so readily.

“I guess that stand at the market reminded me of them. The bowls full of fruit...” he trailed off. “I hadn't noticed the dates. When I saw them, it all came back to me. I always try not to think about my family, and about what this _condition_ of mine means, but those dates, those dates just made it all come back. And I saw my mother's smile and my father's eyes and my grandmother's face and it all came down to me all of a sudden.”

Nicolò put his hand on his forearm and squeezed a bit. “We could go back to your home, see if there is still someone,” he proposed.

Yusuf almost jumped in surprise. He raised his head and looked into pale eyes of indiscernible color. That was a possibility he had never even taken into consideration, had consciously avoided reflecting upon.

“I can't be seen. People would notice and suspect something. I left thirteen years ago, and I haven't aged a day,” he muttered, shaking his head in denial.

The Genoese's offering was as unforeseen as it was tempting, but he couldn't... wouldn't...

“We don't need to go knock on the door. We could just watch from afar, you could see if there are any familiar faces, or I could inquire in the neighborhood.”

It made sense, Yusuf conceded, but he still shook his head.

“For what?” Yusuf was conflicted, but he didn't want is companion to see it. “How could I explain _this_?” he asked, gesturing at himself. “And if they are still there, but I can't talk to them, what good would it do me?”

Yusuf could feel rage raising in his chest, and for the millionth time cursed whatever it was that made him incapable of staying dead.

Nicolò stared at him with an openness and tenderness that scared Yusuf, for in those clear eyes he read affection, desire to help and repent, but also a hint of good-natured mockery. Like the man knew something that even a child could grasp, but Yusuf couldn't. This angered him a bit more.

Nicolò's hand moved and reached his wrist, which he squeezed.

“It would bring closure,” he said. “Wouldn't that be something?”

Yusuf inhaled sharply. He lowered his head and hid his face in his arm, concealing new tears surfacing in his eyes and spilling on his cheeks. Nicolò once again stood there in silent support.

He imagined reaching his hometown, finding his house, and seeing it empty of his family, inhabited by others. He imagined an unsuspecting and ignorant neighbor confirming his fear that all his loved ones had perished. He almost felt the sorrow in knowing it with certainty.

Then he imagined reaching his hometown, finding his house, and seeing a child running in the small garden and his sister and his old mother looking after them. He imagined the surge of love and the relief but also the agony at being unable to go talking to them. He felt on his tongue the bitter taste of sorrow in knowing he would outlive them all, if his _condition_ didn't change.

And then he felt a pale hand touching his and he imagined Nicolò standing beside him in both situations. Consoling him simply with his silent presence and his soft spoken words and his thoughtful eyes, much like he had done today. He thought about having _someone_ to spend the rest of his (Eternal? Very long? Immortal?) life with, and he understood with sudden and uncertain clarity that this person wasn't a mere someone, this person was his new _family_. It would never be a surrogate or a substitute of his original one, but it could be _another._

It was like a weight was lifted from his shoulders.

He looked up. “Closure sounds like something, yes,” he agreed.

They began their journey the following morning.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, there are some hints about Nicolò's backstory here, or at least how I imagine it. Who knows? Maybe I'll find it in me to write something Nicky-centric, too.
> 
> Thank you for reading. Kudos and comments always make me happy!  
> I'm also on Tumblr, nickname: IceDrifter.


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